Chapter Twenty-Three: Painful Recollections
The psychiatrist isn't helping much. He keeps wanting me to talk about that night, wants me to keep writing in my journal about the events and what I dream and think about. But I hate it. I don't want to remember any more than I have. The little I know is bad enough. Why would I want to remember the exact way everything happened?
The police have told me to give it all up. So much time has passed and there are absolutely no hints. But I can't move on from it and yet, I can't relive the night anymore, either.
I'm not going to write any more in this book of nightmares; living my life is bad enough, so why would I want to live it twice?
What my future holds, I do not know. Sometimes, I wish to take the easy way out and just end it all. But I can't do that; that would mean my entire life was a waste and that nothing at all remains for me in the future. And that cannot be true. Not only was my early life full of small joys and hope, my future will not be useless. I will make certain of that. If only this wasn't standing in my way, if only I could leap to three years in the future, it all would be easily evident. I am not one to give up. And even were it the best choice of all, I still wouldn't do it. I wouldn't mind pissing off those who want me dead, for one, but I promised myself long ago that I would go on no matter what and try to make a difference for the kids who face what Mokuba and I did.
No matter what, Kaiba Lands must be available for all so that everyone can have fun. Just because I no longer find fun in anything at all is not reason enough to forbid fun for all the others.
A charged silence like clouds in the middle of a thunderstorm overtook the room. Finally, with a tiny sniff and shifting of position, the spell broke.
"Is that when your bro—"
"No. I don't want to talk about it," I replied in a clipped voice, falling stonily silent.
The small room seemed filled with a choking smoke that obscured the memory, choked the breathing, and drifted to pounce and still the heart in my raging, aching chest.
"I told you not to smoke in our meetings."
"I haven't been," the other said, not at all surprised, but I knew he was just schooled to keep it out of his breath.
"I'm going home."
"All right, Mr. Kaiba. I think you've done a lot today. We nearly completed the story of what you knew of…that night. And you haven't been able to do that once since giving the evidence to the police. I'll see you Wednesday."
Briskly climbing to my feet, I didn't cast the doctor a glance as I strode out of his annoying little office, too intent on getting the choking scent of smoke out of my nostrils.
"Fool," I muttered to myself once out on the sidewalk where the sun shone so strongly everything smelled of heat. At least with the sauna stink no smoke could waft its way to me. "You know it isn't even the scent of cigarette smoke. It's some kind of wood smoke and something else far more noxious."
After all, I had certainly gone by enough smokers in my lifetime to recall the exact way the poisonous fumes clung to the nose, tickling the inside higher than even a grubby kid could stick his finger. Gozaburo himself had smoked; I knew what cigars and cigarettes smelled like.
But why was it this stench of smoke would never leave my nostrils?
The same usual day. Bland. Dull. How could I have been doing this for so long already? How long had it been…?
"What a question. It's been two months and twenty-two days."
"What was that, sir?" My driver looked into the review mirror back at me, eyes as professionally trained as that psychiatrist's. Such eyes showed no judgment, showed no thinking at all, not even any emotion. I was completely sick of it all.
"Nothing."
"Yes, sir."
The black limousine drove on silently.
Home.
Not exactly. Nothing felt like a "home" to me anymore. Just a mansion, a place I lived. But it didn't mean I enjoyed myself at all.
As usual, my eyes traveled up to the front of the house to the middle windows, the largest ones. I don't know why I bothered, especially after two months and twenty-two days had gone by.
The curtains were shut. No one stood by to watch me arrive, just like no one ever stood there waiting to wave farewell whenever I went anywhere. No one bothered. Not anymore.
Driving up to the main entrance, the chauffeur put the limo in neutral to stop and open the door for me. But I didn't bother sitting around waiting for him to make his stately way over to my door. I jumped out immediately.
Slamming shut my door, he climbed back in and drove off slowly to park. Then, just the mansion doors rested before me, almost breathing like some rancid beast anticipating a new meal. But they had not yet managed to swallow me completely. I always could escape eventually.
What I couldn't escape was the truth. And that enjoyed taunting me continually in my dreams. Really, nothing much had changed in my nightmares from before the two-and-a-half months and after. I still lost sleep every night and awakened in a cold sweat. Even talking to that damned doctor did nothing for me.
"The only one who could help me…" I never allowed myself to finish the sentence. It was useless, anyway.
Tightening my grasp on my briefcase, my other hand grew taut and rudely punched open my front door.
Servants scurried and scuttled to look like they were working. Truthfully, they had probably done most of the required work already and most for the days approaching. How much dust could a place gather when it only had one night to attract it? Even as a place as large as this, with all the workers combined to keep it running smoothly, very few specks remained to give it the chance to fail inspection. Not like anyone cared enough to inspect it.
A tray of food sat waiting for me, as always, without fail. But, as usual, without fail, I ignored it and went straight up to my room after making a phone call that somehow, unbelievably, made my day only worse. Even knowing others felt slightly concerned about me, such as with the tray, did not relieve me of my black mood, though it usually helped a bit. Still, I could never summon much of an appetite anymore. No doubt the food wouldn't go to waste. Someone else would eat it.
School, business, psychiatrist visits: they all led up to a filled day. The police station had highly encouraged me not to come in anymore. They didn't think it helped my emotional state to try to help them find leads that proved impossible to find. But I had found other ways to fill my days. I wouldn't want anything less. It kept my mind mostly preoccupied. Well, except that certain things would never leave my mind.
"It's been two months and twenty-two days. Don't you think it's time to stop counting them?"
But I couldn't.
This room was one the maids didn't frequent as much as the rest of the house. Mainly, the presence of the master hindered it, as I lived within it most of the evening. No visitors were allowed.
Still, everything glistened with lack of the dust that always piled up somewhere else once one removed it. Such small specks, and yet, they never stopped their harassment on anything. Such small specks shouldn't have such an effect on things. It shouldn't be allowed.
The bed appeared neatly made with the covers never indicating my thrashings in the night. The bookshelf sat proudly erect on the north wall, the colors of the spines making a rainbow I used to enjoy looking at. Now, they all seemed a mere blur of useless color.
Piled neatly on the edge of my desk near to the computer, my work always rested for when I would return to it. Organization held the key to control, the trick to getting through this all. Preparation, organization, order…that was all I needed.
Going over to my desk and placing my special briefcase down, something else caught my attention. Something that was the antithesis to order and control, preparation and organization, some infiltrator that had crept within and pounced when I least expected it—something that threw off my entire façade.
The face staring back at me from the surface of my briefcase I hated. It looked weak, tired, wore down, and I couldn't stand that. And yet, no time would I take to improve it at all. What did it matter if my eyes rested cozily atop bags or red decorated their rims or veins speckled the white vitreous humor like red sprinkles on frosted cookies? What difference did it make if my pallor shone so pale I would soon pass for an albino in skin tone? What good was the sun touching me with its golden rays? Why was it considered so healthy?
The sun didn't hit everyone.
No doubt, other cheeks were growing pasty and sunken as time wore on, hair disheveled and needing a good wash.
"Is that what you want? To live in the darkness? You can't go that way!" I slammed my fist down on the metal briefcase and release my held breath.
Then, abruptly, I started helplessly laughing. When I finally caught some air, I commented, "You're surely mad. Here you are, talking to yourself and debating things aloud like someone else will answer them. No one will."
And calmed once more, I sat at my desk and opened up some work on my computer. But the vision that had come of a small person resting silently in a deep unreachable place wouldn't leave my eyes no matter how many words and numbers they processed automatically.
Under the ground probably felt cool right now, uncomfortably so. And the bugs would be feasting already. Maybe, the eyes, the lovely gray-violet eyes, gaped as sockets on a visage riddled with holes and sporting a skeletal, eerily-grinning mouth…
"No!" I gasped, bidding the horror to go back to wherever it dwelled when I somehow could rid myself of it.
But the worms only writhed more over the face and roaches crawled through the once-smooth, shiny black hair; his clothes getting thin and tattered; bones protruding through the papery skin; flesh so utterly still and frozen that a heavy step from above might crack a finger free; a putrid smell bubbling and gathering in the small area, growing and struggling to burst free to the surface…
"STOP IT!" I roared, hitting the keyboard with both fists, not even reacting when a bunch of nonsense appeared on the screen before blackening completely.
Someone else's eyes saw only blackness…
"NO. Don't think of it. Just let it go, just forget it for now…"
But how could I ever forget it? How I just pretend it didn't happen?
My brother was dead.